One month of WIND Mobile

It’s been about one month since I joined WIND Mobile. This was a huge turning point in my wireless telecommunications life, as not only did I switch companies for the first time ever, I also got my first smartphone, and my first push-email service.

Here are some of my reflections on WIND.

Network

It’s not bad. Considering all the complaints I’ve been reading, the network is surprisingly good. I can definitely tell the difference between WIND and my previous telecom provider, but it’s not too bad.

I do drop the odd call, and sometimes more than the odd call. The weirdest part is when I do drop the call, it’s usually after I hear some crazy alien noises, or scary exorcist noises, followed by silence. The call doesn’t always drop, but the line goes dead. So that’s annoying.

The main big bad event I had was roaming. During my trip to the states, the phone went into SOS mode, and was stuck there, even though there were plenty of T-Mobile towers everywhere. Very bad.

Features

WIND’s program is somewhat full of features, and simultaneously lacking in features. When I get a voice message, WIND sends me a text message saying that I have voice mail. I don’t know why this is more effective than the little blinking icon at the top of my window, but it’s one of their things.

When my bill is ready, I get a text message and an email saying so. I’m betting the other companies did this too, but I didn’t add them.

When I enter the states, I get a bunch of texts welcoming me to the states and reminding me with the price of roaming.

I can’t call *680 and leave a traffic tip.

I can’t text a tweet to 21212 via SMS

Picture messaging or other MMS doesn’t count as a message, and costs extra

Customer Service

As with all companies with call centres, customer service is pretty hit or miss. Sometimes I get super friendly, committed CSRs that will do anything to help, and others are less knowledgeable, and just want to get you through the call.

Fortunately, most of the information is available online, so you can be just as informed as they are.

The wait times for speaking to a real live person got really long for a bit, and have gotten short again. Now, I don’t spend any time on hold.

The main issue is near the end of each month. All of the prepaid customers top up at the same time each month, and I believe online payment hasn’t been set up or something, I don’t actually know, because I’m not a prepaid customer. All I know is that there are huge wait times to talk to CSRs at the end of the month because of the prepaid customers.

Price, Products, Plans

No doubt about it, the plans are unbelievably awesome. Because I’m neurotic, I actually took my call-by-call WIND bill, imported it into Excel and filtered the calls out by evenings, weekends, day time, incoming, etc. If I had stayed with Telus, last month I would have had a $130 bill, not including data nor taxes. With WIND, my bill ought to have been $45, not including data nor taxes.

Now, if I were to have stayed with Telus, I probably wouldn’t have used my phone so willy-nilly, but I think the spirit of comparison is being able to use my phone freely.

The weakness of WIND is their lack of tiered pricing. There’s only one real data plan, which is unlimited at $35/month. Very expensive, and comparable to 3 or 4 GB plans from the incumbents. I could use all the data I want, and probably come under 1GB per month. Understandable, WIND doesn’t want to offer a smaller plan for smaller price, because the pooled benefit is lost.

Summary

The company’s attitude is great. I can see that the offerings of the 3 large telecom providers are changing. They’re temporarily eliminating the system access fee, and the plans being offered are comparable to WIND.

However, you can tell that the company is new, and you have to deal with them and their weaknesses for the time being. If that’s something you’re willing to do to save $85/month, go for it. Just be prepared to drop a call or two.

Comments

Thanks for the review! You’re the second of my friends to switch to WIND. The other one actually just switched back to Bell due to bad reception in his home.

I really hope newcomers like WIND and Public can make it in this economy. But the incumbents aren’t making it easy. I would switch if I could, but until I can bring my iPhone to their network I’ll be staying within the Robellus umbrella.

I just checked my last statement for AT&T where I pay $30 for unlimited data. I only used 225MB… I wish there was a cheaper data option as well, but I would say that part of the reason why I use so little is that the BlackBerry isn’t really a media consumption device like the iPhone because of its small screen.

I wanted to pop in to say thanks for the review. Its so awesome to see how powerful word-of-mouth is, and we’re flattered that you chose to share your experience as a member of the WIND Mobile family with your readers.

We’re on the cusp of something amazing. Our customers are amazing folks, as they’ve stuck with us through the four launches we’ve had since the end of last year. Many new faces are becoming part of their experience and its them (and you!) who will steer and strengthen WIND Mobile as we expand across Canada.

The feedback we’ve received has been phenominal, and some of the ideas have been so good, we’ve made them a reality. A lot of our customers have asked for tiered pricing specially for data. When a voice is spoken, we’re here to listen and act. Check out our recent blog post about new data add-on’s which we will share over the coming weeks: http://tinyurl.com/25ybkeb

Our networks are being expanded, our HOME zones are being solidified,and agreements with roaming partners are being finalized! New additons to our product and services lineup will be revealed soon! Keep your eyes open for what’s new-and-improved.